korea is on its way to developing technology to launch a rocket at the united states's west coast and hawaii. officials tell cnn that the working assumption is that the north koreans got outside help from others, including iran. so today's launch is raising some huge concerns. let's go to our pentagon correspondent barbara starr. i assume they are pretty surprised and alarmed by the successful launch over at the pentagon? >> look, wolf, because of everything you just mentioned, indeed, the u.s. military, the intelligence committee have been watching north korea for days now 24/7 because they did expect to launch and they announced it. but they were having technical problems so a lot thought it wouldn't happen until next week. when it happened last week, there was a surprise. the north korean anchor's excitement was clear. >> announcing the launch of a long-range rocket that put a north korean satellite to orbit around the earth. they clearly achieved one goal raising everyone's anxiety level. >> this is a step towards the ability to build a long-range missile that could strike parts of the u